I don’t ever remember Dewine being down by 5 in the polling. It always seemed like it was 8 to 10 points so the fact that he lost by 5 compared to pre-election polling bodes well for this year. Blackwell on the other hand...
Ok, I looked at the RCP numbers. From Aug. through early Sept. Dewine was down 4-5; then he started to tail, falling as far as 12, finishing with a 10-point loss.
DeWine lost by 12% (56-44%) in 2006. The margin was nearly 453,000 votes. The final RCP average for the race had it at 53.3% to 43.3%, which ended up being pretty close. Nobody besides Zogby had DeWine above 45% after September.
As far as Ohio polls are concerned, the University of Cincinnati poll was the most accurate in 2004, coming within less than 1% for both Bush and Kerry.